Voters set up races for four Orange County commission seats in November by whittling casts of candidates to two in districts 2, 6, 7 and 8.
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Incumbent District 6 Commissioner Mike Scott took about 49% of the vote Tuesday, falling just shy of enough votes to avoid a runoff.
Commissioners collect an annual salary of about $130,000, though their pay could rise to $135,000 if the proposed county budget is adopted.
The winning candidates in all but District 7 will earn a four-year term. District 7 is a two-year term.
Districts 7 and 8 were created by a voter referendum in 2024 to expand the commission by two seats.
District 2
Former state Rep. Kamia Brown, a Democrat, and veteran Orange County deputy sheriff Michael Crabb, the lone Republican in the five-candidate, nonpartisan primary, will face off in November to represent northwest Orange County.
Brown won about 32% of the ballots cast and Crabb won about 25.6%.
Crabb technically ran as an incumbent as he was appointed July 31 by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill a board vacancy created when two-term District 2 Commissioner Christine Moore resigned as required by state law to run in April for another elected office, Apopka mayor. She lost that contest.
Orange County Democrats criticized DeSantis for the late election cycle appointment, saying he undermined “the principle that voters should choose their own representatives.”
Wes Hodge, who has served as chief of staff for two county commissioners and was formerly chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, finished third with 19.5% of the vote; former Ocoee city commissioner George Oliver III took 15% of the vote; and family law attorney Marsha Summersill got about 7.6% of the ballots.
The district includes Apopka, Eatonville, Lockhart, Ocoee, Tangerine and Zellwood.
District 6
Incumbent Mike Scott and challenger Lawanna Gelzer are headed for a rematch of their 2022 race.
Scott won four years ago, edging Gelzer by 656 votes in a runoff in which 4,597 voters did not mark their ballot for either.
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The two candidates also rivaled each other in fundraising with each reporting more than $90,000.
But most of Gelzer’s money came from loans to herself.
Cynthia Harris, who operates a not-for-profit organization, took third in the race with 15.9% of the vote followed by Hedder Pierre Joseph, a small business owner, with 10.4% and Loody Delice, head of the Haitian Community Center, with 2.9%.
District 7
The ballot in the newly-created county commission district was the most crowded with a dozen candidates, easily the most in recent memory.
Patricia Rumph, a former president of the Pine Hills Community Council who was endorsed by county Tax Collector Scott Randolph, finished atop the logjam with 22.7% of the vote, according to final unofficial results. She will face off with Vicki Vargo, a former Orlando City Commissioner who won 18.2% of the ballots while touting herself in some campaign mailings as “the conservative voice” in a district where half of all registered voters are Democrats.
Aaron Emmanuel Lewis, a military veteran and nonprofit leader, finished third with 12.3 % of the vote.
The district includes College Park, Eatonville, Kingswood Manor, Maitland, Pine Hills and Rosemont.
District 8
Former state Sen. Victor M. Torres will face Jeannette Quiñones-Hernandez in November.
Torres won 32.8% of the vote while Quiñones-Hernandez, formerly an “outreach specialist” in Central Florida for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, took about 20% of the ballots.
George Haas, an engineer who self-funded his campaign, finished third of the six candidates with 15.6% of the vote.
The district includes the communities of Hunter’s Creek, Lake Nona, Moss Park, Williamsburg, and Wyndham Lakes.
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